The first of several federal whistleblower qui tam (fraud) suits have now been filed against one of America's major electronic voting machine companies, The BRAD BLOG can now report.

Florida attorney Mike Papantonio who, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hosts Ring of Fire, weekends on Air America Radio, was a guest on Mike Malloy's radio program last night. [Complete audio is available at bottom of this article.] He discussed the upcoming whistleblower suits that he and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are filing against several of the voting machine companies. Pap was loaded for bear.

During the interview, he gave several new details on the federal fraud suits now being filed, which include several whistleblower plaintiffs whose stories were originally reported here at The BRAD BLOG, as mentioned last week in a quick item here, with some fresh details of our own. Pap reported last night that the "dream team of lawyers" they've assembled to take on these evil, irresponsible, anti-American companies includes a bunch of those who took on the tobacco companies in a successful quarter billion dollar suit --- so they're not likely easily intimidated, we'd think.

Speaking of the level of fraud to be revealed by the suits, which must be sealed by law for 60 days as the Attorney General decides if they will join the complaint, Papantonio told Malloy: "When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud... you... it'll make Americans feel like they're living in a damned banana republic, a third world country. I have never heard such outrageous facts."

"And you know what?" he continued, "We've had our investigators look at it. We verified everything. And when you hear it, you're gonna say, 'Not in America.' ...Bad news is: Yeah, it is in America."

The fraud suits, Papantonio said, are "a way to get at their money, and that's the only thing these people understand."

"At the end of the day, we're gonna shut down some of these companies," Papantonio said. "Some day these hacks are gonna be across the table from me, and they're gonna have to answer the questions that nobody else has been able to ask them."

Pap excoriated the DNC, "the indolent Democrats and the lazy media," for not participating in any of this, and decried the fact that he and RFK Jr. were essentially forced to take action on their own, given the Dems' failure to do anything.

He also spoke of the voting machine "sleepovers" about which we've been reporting here in detail of late. As well, he had several kind words for this website and several other election integrity groups. "Unless you had these organizations out there like Black Box Voting or BRAD BLOG, people like that, paying attention to this, this wouldn't even be on the radar screen," he said.

(Thanks to Ring of Fire producer Scott Millican for the heads-up and for the smartly edited, commercial-free audio file!)

UPDATE:AP finally notices the spate of lawsuits being filed against these e-voting companies and their shitty wares across the country. AP is still way behind us here at The BRAD BLOG, of course, and haven't noticed the RFK Jr. suits, but hey, they don't have the access to the huge resources and manpower that we are able to leverage here, with our enormous staff and boundless funding, so we'll cut AP some slack. They're just a little blog or something, right? I'm sure they're doing their best. Thanks to Pam of The Democratic Daily for the heads up!

Yeah Dredd, I wish one of them dudes would take some of the crap we found and drag it around the block a couple of times, get the knots out of it, and shove it right up their butts
But this is like music to my ears, Democracy at work once again !!!! without a peoples party, no less
(Yes, that was for all the Democratic Congresscritters lurking around)

"Ha ha ha. You moonbats are at it again. Do you realize how stupid you sound? Listen, libs...we're driving the bus. You bunch of losers. Did Clinton put you up to this? Liberal wackos, that's all you are, supporting terrorists. Commies!"

Sorry. I was taking a nap. Great news about the lawsuit. Go, Mike Pap!

The fact is, you can research and litigate all you want. The Repubicans have already moved on to winning the next round of elections and they are looking back and laughing at us. What will all of this lead to? 1. You will prove elections were stolen - so what? - everyone already knows and no one's gonna resign any of their positions and switch the false winners with the new winners. 2. You'll put Diebold and the like out of business - So what? - They'll change their name and start selling genetically engineered food products.
P.S. Doesn't solve the problem of how we're going to be casting and counting ballots in November -Now, there's a worthy problem to tackle!

I really hate to belabor the point, but Florida legislature does not allow recounts of paper ballots. If ballots/absentee ballots are used and there needs to be a recount, Florida (27 electoral votes) will not conduct a recount of paper. I wonder how many other states with republican controlled legislatures have slipped these kinds of laws past the public in anticipation of the paper ballot reaction/solution?

What are you talking about, Dixiecrat (#6)?
"1. You will prove elections were stolen - so what?"

What do you mean, "so what?" That is a big deal.

Then Dixiecrat (#15)
We *want* to use paper ballots. We just want to *count* them, too. Laws that prevent hand counts are just silly nonsense. I can't imagine them holding up in court without some serious executive massaging.

"... trick us into using paper ballots ..." We've been hollering our heads off for paper ballots for a long time. Sure, we have to make sure that recounts are made mandatory upon request, but hand-counted paper ballots, with plenty of oversight, is our only hope right now.

99 Me Subversive? They're the ones who left us no choice but to come to the logical conclusion that paper ballots will be the best system. Can you see it now "well, all of you Democrats wanted paper ballots. You should have read the recount rules first. We don't recount paper ballots."

Well, in Florida, you definitely have that problem, but I don't think that is strictly so across the nation, and if this blows up big enough, there could be a national level mandate, a rider on HAVA, say, that we have to do hand-counted paper ballots, verifiable by hand recounts, in all states until this EVM nightmare is over, resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

Come to think of it, doing that right now, might get some Republicans reelected in November... fairly!

If the ONLY vote is on a paper ballot, and there is no other ballot, then the paper ballot is what will be recounted, and no state law will stop that.

The places they have prevented paper ballot recounts is where they also have EVMs and are basically saying we trust the EVM's and won't compare them with the paper.

"A paper ballot, counted by a human hand, in public view, with the totals presented locally prior to centralized tabulation." Add "Same day registration and four-day voting (Sat/Sun/Mon/Tue)" and we could probably get a government that actually represented the will of the populace.

Or, we could just let this mess slide into fascism and build something new and different on the ashes of the revolution that will ultimately follow.

I hope you and/or Agent Dredd are compiling all your links to evidence so they can be handed over for investigation by authorities or litigants for all this stuff. We don't want it merely being buried in the BradBlog archives. You two have been working your butts off. Thanks. Yes, thank you both very much.

I would just like to offer up a big thank you to Mr. Friedman and everybody at Bradblog. Your site has become THE primary source for information on voting issues, and I truly appreciate all of the hard work you're doing to focus national attention on this essential issue. When I was convinced that all hope was gone, you folks kept me believing, and for that, I can't thank you enough. The tide is beginning to turn, and Bradblog is a large part of the reason why. Great job!

It's about time that this issue has moved up.
But I can't help but remember that here in Missouri how it was reported on the news that there where voting machines out side in aley in the larger Citys. And Judges ordering voting places kept open past the time the Law says they have to shut down.
Voting machines are just a part of the mess that has made it easy for anyone with money or clout to get into office.
And I find it hard to Beleive that in WW II they could find the spies and all just fine, but now they have to watch the American people to be able to find them. And to pass these laws that give the government the power to do this and not have to answer to anyone!
People better wake up and look at what is going on, or they just as well stay in bed because it is all but over.

Ive thought alot about why the Dems keep ignoring this and the best I can come up with is they dont want fair elections either. If all the votes counted and this led to further change of lets say publicly financed elections so all candidates had a voice then they may permanently lose power due to the election of third party candidates. Lets face it the Repubs have more sheep, or at least I feel they do. So having said that, has Feingold said anything since Brad spoke with him?????????

(And if any of y'all who are reading this got here by following links I posted on my blog or on the old discussion boards at Dockwave, do me a favor - give me a shoutout or something over there? I'd like to know if someone is paying attention.)

Here in Wisconsin we have been using paper ballots where you just connect the arrowhead to the fletching. It is simple, there are no "hanging chads" and there is certainly a paper trail. I don't understand why everybody doesn't just adopt our method. Oh, wait, it kinda makes it harder to steal an election. Republicans would never go for it. With our mouthbreathing state reps I am surprised they haven't tried to outlaw it.

Is Brad joking about AP at the bottom of this piece In the Update. AP is as up the butt as all the other complicit media. In 2004 they called West Virginia for Bush at 6;30PM EST with less than 2% of the voting precints counted. This influenced western State voting and was ridiculous. WV NPR of course picked this up and blabbed it immediately. I called WV NPR and this is how I found this out. I was piossed and they said , "that's what AP says."

Is Brad joking and being cynical or sucking up to AP by 'cutting them some slack'? Fuck AP

Vulture Man: You are, of course, right about AP being a bunch of right wing media whores.

And, that raises the MOST interesting question that others have asked here, about WHY the right wing dominated, corporate controlled media is sticking their toes into this pool

Possibility 1: They have a plan, and allowing the meme of "Election Fraud" to catch a LITTLE wind (but not enough to actually ever CHANGE any election a Republican won) is part of it.

Possibility 2: They have read their history and fear (just a little bit) the French or Russian (or even Iranian) Revolutions, and the possibility that they might be dragged into the streets and put up against a wall and shot (which, in my humble opinion would be WAY too easy an end for them). That is, they are "covering their bases" against the possibility that the neo-con coup won't hold up.

Either way, sometimes you have to take what you can get, and if they are willing to "cover" the story, we have to take advantage of that, and, sick as it is, even "compliment" them when they do it.

History will judge them --- we just have to use them.

Oh, and I almost forgot...

Possibility 3: A lot of the bosses are on Summer Vacation and many of the underlings (remember that cameraman at FOX who shot Bush's back and the black box during the first debate even though the formal contract specifically prohibited it?) are not fully bought and paid for the way the upper management are.

Brad I was smiling when I read "they don't have the access to the huge resources and manpower that we are able to leverage here, with our enormous staff and boundless funding," (Love the sarcasm)
Remember the 6-7 of us, giving you all our big bucks
I am so happy for you! Keep on truck'n.

You have been relentless with this issue, Brad. Likewise as other people here have told you, it has given me a ray of hope I wasnít getting anywhere else also, for a long time. You have gone above and beyond doing this blog and also reaching people by radio shows across the nation who donít have internet access and I hope you are as proud of yourself as you should be! You always handle yourself very well with people (even sleezebag Coulter! lol). Hoping something honest can happen before November.

Are the sheep waking up? Are the last 29% putting 2 and 2 together finally? Do I sense the nation rubbing their eyes and wondering how we got in this corporate boat to hell? A REAL paper trail is our only hope.

Kudos to Brad, Patriot and others who have worked so hard to uncover and/or collect the facts about so much election fraud. It has all seemed hopeless to me for the past many months - everyone KNOWS itís going on, but it just continues virtually unchanged. I should have trusted and shared your enthusiasm! Iím sorry. Never ever give up. I saw where John Conyers gave you kudos too, that was great.

Woo hoo! First ray of hope for survival as a free American in a long time, thank you!

6 hours ago
WASHINGTON - The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.

What heartening news!!! And Papantonio seems to have the fire and conviction to succeed, too. THANK YOU,Brad, for sticking with this for so long and seemingly in a hostile wilderness (with a few faithful exceptions). I came here on November 3rd, 2004, and haven't missed a day since. This news is GR-R-R-EAT!

(BTW, our phone line sometimes goes dead - it did today - which is why this is my first appearance today. It feels like exile! )

Actually, my e-mail isn't about the RFK Jr. lawsuit, although I'm pleased to hear about it. It's to tell you that because of my having read your coverage of the sneaky recertification of Diebold voting machines in California several months ago by the corrupt Republican Secretary of State, I was able to get a letter (the lead letter!) in The Nation this week (the July 17/24 issue) on the subject. Although I'm only an intermittent reader of your blog, thanks for keeping me informed.

"The indolent Democrats"...exactly what we've been saying. It's sooooo strange the Democrats aren't participating in any of this, and THEY are the party MOST AFFECTED by it. That means if "others" didn't do it FOR THEM, this wouldn't be happening.

Brad already posted, that the Republicans will possibly use the insecurity of e-vote machines to their advantage in close races in Nov., claiming the e-vote machines were wrong. Unbelievable! The Democrats! The Republicans will be the party to use this, not the Democrats. And they're the ones behind this! What exactly is with the Democrats? I don't blame the Republicans if they use it to their advantage. The Democrats had YEARS to do it, they can RIGHT NOW participate in the RFK, Jr. lawsuit. But they won't. Why not? Are they even glad RFK, Jr. is doing this? Silence by the Dems on the whole thing... And is Howard Dean saying anything about this? If not, why not? They absolutely must know this is going on, let's face it. So why are they silent about it? Can someone think of a good reason? Maybe there's a good reason, and we don't know it. That's possible. I keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't know why.

Dems aren't saying anything because they get big donations from the same big corporations that Repubs do. (In fact, it's been reported Dems have gotten MORE money than Repubs this year from big business.)

Mark Crispin Miller quoted John Kerry as saying he knew '04 was stolen...but decided the country should just go fascist. He later denied saying it. I believe Miller. My hypothesis is the country has been sliding away from democracy for several decades. We know that if we can get a real dem. leader that 1. The person will be hunted and hounded by the media. 2. May end up in a small plane crash or killed by a lone gunmen. We would never have had Roosevelt to pull us out of the depression with today's media. They would have concentrated on affairs.Big oil and corporations control this country. I also think since Inconvenient Truth came out that Al Gore posed a threat to big oil and they felt they had to steal the 2000 election. The dems. and media made it so easy, they couldn't stop. The democratic party , Kerry and Gore rolled over, I think, to try to rid the country of fascists by giving them power enough to destroy themselves. I don't think the strategy worked. The liberal blogs are a joke. Talking points just like repubs. Nobody mentions the fast by great dems. to bring the troops home. We need a third party and big oil out of the govt. Anybody truly leading risks their lives. An Enron criminal who was to be deported in England upped and died suddenly like Ken Lay. These people are dangerous criminals who run our govt.

Laura, scary but you hit the nail on the head, as a matter of fact, you drove that nail in with one blow
The criminality that is our voting problem, runs so deep that its going to take years to get our heads wrapped around it, everything else is just skimming the surface
But (big but), bringing out whats going on "on the surface" will help us get to the bottom of this, I'm almost for sure on that, I'm just hoping that somebody on the inside will speak up out of guilt eventually, like maybe a death bed confession

Maybe the Democrats have been told that the entire banking system will be shut down if they even mention the voting machines!

If it gets nasty, the Republicans are going to blame us liberals for the mess. Don't you just love it!

I'm not a great "war president" like Bush, but I see it this way.

We have the real anger, and they have the fake anger, so we are much stronger!

If you've ever tried to reason with a "conservative", educated by television media, you must have noticed that at some point, they will end the conversation, and literaly walk or run away to avoid continuing. It's not because they are really mad at you. It's because they cannot hold up their side of the argument and they know it. It's the kind of anger someone feigns when they are caught cheating. Not real.

If the ruling class gets freaked out, and tries to start a shooting war HERE, (not over there), all Americans will have to face real facts, real quick, in the streets. The chickenhawks and their payed pundits will disappear, (along with their non-reality based world view), like a dry fart.

pfffpt!

Just when they said there are no more heros, Kennedy and friends show up and hit them right between their corporate-vote-counting eyes!

You said you appreciate the work of Black Box Voting, Velvet Revolution, and Brad Blog.

Feel free to have your investigators use any information I dig up and post here as pro bono publico, and if you need my assistance on anything feel free to ask. I have done such work professionally for lawfirms in major cases for decades.

All we would ask is that a donation be made to those blogs as a sign of reward for the good work done in the pro bono spirit.

We are with you in your efforts!

On other fronts some dems are pressing the election fraud realm where GOP members have been indicted and convicted for felonies managed from the white house (link here), and most Americans are going to back dems in November to make the margins large and obvious (link here).

The republican dictatorship and its machine warfare managed by the election warlords are going down if we have our way.

For Larry Bergan: Your comment that Democrats might be protecting the banking system by not commenting on voting machines is not at all far-fetched. Diebold is a Fortune-500 company whose primary business is ATM machines; if they go out of business things could get very chaotic.

A little recent history here: In Oct. 1998 a hedge fund with the grossly inappropriate name of Long-Term Capital Management got into bad financial trouble. LTCM was one of those miilionaires-only, unregulated private funds that traded so-called derivative securities like options and carved-up mortgages on a heavily leveraged basis. In other words, they were borrowing something like 90 cents on the dollar from banks and brokerage firms to finance their trading.

They started to lose. Big time. The fund doubled its bets, and lost more. Nobody heard a word about it, of course, until the fund's losses got so bad that its equity was negative and they couldn't repay the banks and brokers who lent them capital.

So everybody took a loss, right? Nope. David Komansky of Merrill Lynch ran to the New York Federal Reserve Bank in a panic. "Do something!" What the Fed did was to act as an "honest broker" (sic) in a bailout, that saved Merrill's ass and the banks'. The only member of Congress who said a word in protest was Jim Leach (a Republican, oddly), who held hearings that resulted in a consensus finding that what was done was preferable to a collapse of the financial system.

Moral of the story: If risk to financial institutions can be ameliorated in such a cavalier fashion and with official sanction, then it's possible to rationalize anything, including stolen elections, as being "for the greater good of the country."

Why is RFK Jr ignoring the stolen 2000 election? I sure wish Brad blog would ask him that question.The proof of Al Gore's victory is found in the actual ballots and not in a statistical analysis as is the case for 2004. For the record, Florida law in 2000 required that the uncounted votes be counted. Jeb Bush has since changed that law to make sure that all of the votes aren't counted.

In the Crooked Panhandle of Florida it is not unusual to have 100% of registered republicans voting, but to also have large numbers (in this case over 10,000 if I remember correctly) of Democrats & others to cross over and vote for an idiot like Bush. We are supposed to believe this Bush miracle in spite of the fact that people were angry at the sloppy leadership & the illegal war.

Shortly after the election I saw figures from all 67 counties in FL and Praises be, something like 42 or more Florida counties had the equivelant of 100% of Registered republicans voting plus many cross-over votes from other parties. I have been too disgusted to check the final figures but it was amazing to me that so much fuss was raised over Ohio while Flordia and it's fraud was barely mentioned.

In Pensacola (Escambia County) we use optical scanners which I had previously believed were immune to fraud. They're not! All you need is a republican loving Elections supervior to disable features on these machines and to discard the Black votes. In the 2000 election, almost 5000 ballots were discarded in predominately African American precincts where about 85% of the vote was going to Gore. Don't forget that about 27,000 ballots were discarded in Jacksonville.

I have read enough now to believe that George Bush has never been elected to ANY public office, not even the governorship of Texas! This despicable person is a total fraud.

Update on Diebold stock, as of 10:15 a.m. EDT...stock is trading at $37.95, a new low. According to my technical analysis (a little rusty), an hourly close below $38 would be a breakdown, unless the stock were to rally back above $38 by the close of the market.

If we wait for the Democrats in office to do ANYTHING, NOTHING will get accomplished. When we get up off of our lazy, apathetic butts and turn off the idiot box in our living rooms, maybe some of us might even wake up from that Fox News induced coma to realize that together WE have the power to change things in this country. it's all up to us.

I saw a Nova episode about that and it was fascinating, but very scary!

I finally got a chance to hear the Mike and Mike interview. Great stuff. This is going to be the lawsuit of the century, if not, ALL TIME! The best thing though, is that it will, to a certain extent, vindicate our country by showing we didn't really vote for these scum.

I think this is what Howard Dean was talking about when he said they were going to scatter like cockroaches, and from what we've learned, there are a BUNCH of cockroaches infesting our election system!

This just thrills me. It is soooo appropriate that it is Bobby Kennedy Jr.who is coming to the rescue of Democracy and offering to lead the rest of us in that endeavor.

I remember so well, that hot June morning in 1968, when I woke up to the news that Bobby Kennedy had been shot down in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen, in LA.

My father broke the news to me, then a sophomore in college, after I had poured myself a cup of coffee. We were on vacation in Florida. My Independent, leaning Republican, deeply southern, anti-Kennedy father, stood there, looking at my shocked face, wide-eyed disbelief, seeing the tears begin to run down my face. Putting his arm around me, he said, "I'm so sorry, Shuga."

It was clear that Dad was beginning to believe that something very bad was happening in America. He called the U.S. a big Bananna Republic.

The day Bobby Kennedy died was the day that the light of hope was severely dimmed for me. I sobbed into my Dad's shoulder, "Dad, I just don't have anymore hope. The light has gone out for me."

Seems the eternal flame of hope has been ignited again, buy another Bobby Kennedy.

I would love nothing better than to hug his neck, and tell him how very much I loved his father.

Send everyone the name of the attorney general in this case. If s/he throws their lawsuit out the window, I think everyone should call and write immediately! This lawsuit doesn't mean anything unless it goes through - as it should - NOW.
Thanks.